The calendar flipped to October. Today, the days to Christmas widget on my desktop says 74 days. Time to panic?
Five children x how many presents????
Since early in our parenting, we have given three gifts to each of our children, just as the wise men brought three gifts to Jesus. Still, I could get overwhelmed with all the gift lists, the “I wants”. That is until I read about two simple solutions. Guidelines we adopted to keep the focus on Christ and the bank account from going bust.
A couple of readers sent in these ideas to a Wondertime magazine about two years ago:
*“Every Christmas our five children receive three gifts: one “gold” gift, the big item they are longing for; one “myrrh” gift, which is for their body, such as clothing; and one “frankincense” gift, for their spiritual growth.
It keeps spending down but also focuses on our celebration of Christmas and the gifts given to the Christ child. We send a portion of the money we’ve saved to charity.”
*“We do a few gifts: something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read.”
The specifics these readers shared put additional meaning behind each gift. Also, there was less figuring out and thinking involved for us parents! For example, last year for their frankincense gift, the children each received a new Sing the Word CD from His Own Hand Music. We had been wanting to get the remaining CDs and Sing the Word just happened to be running a bundle package special. Four CDs plus a free download – equaling 5 gifts!!
Just think how often this reasoning will come up for discussion with your children. And how you will get to share the Christmas story. Tell of the wise men searching for the new born king. How they followed the star, found him and gave him those three gifts.
Narrow down the focus of your gift giving. Enjoy Christmas. Celebrate the true meaning.
You’ll be giving more and spending less. Then you can enjoy January too 🙂
Updated from the 2008 Hodgepodge archives
-Tricia homeschools five children from preschool to middle school. She’s forsaken life in the drive thru lane for the road home. She contributes a blend of writing at parenting, homeschool and frugal living sites. You can find her facing that daily dose of chaos at Hodgepodge. Tricia is a.k.a. Hodgepodgemom.
Habits for a Happy Home 
We give our children three gifts, as well. I think it is a great idea…and helps us stay focused on the true reason for the season.
I’ve always wanted to give three gifts but couldn’t figure how to decide the three gifts! This is a GREAT idea.
Love it! We adopted this idea last year, before that I always broke down and broke the 3 gift rule =(
We always did a toy, pajamas, a book, and an ornament when they were little (I guess that is 4 things!). The enjoyed knowing what the category would be but not the exact thing.
We usually have the kids participate in sacrificial giving with money they earn doing jobs around the house. We’ve done Toys for Tots and Samaritan’s Purse shoeboxes, to name a couple.
I like these ideas, we are planning to do something similar this year.
My kids are all grown and married now, but when they were home, we did four gifts: one “special” gift (set out on the hearth near the stockings) and three “under-the-tree” gifts (1 outfit, 1 book/set, 1 toy/game/fun gift). Sometimes the special gift was a family gift, sometimes individual. Instead of a free-for-all, we took turns as each person opened his or her gift. Even with only three children, Christmas morning lasted for hours!
The stockings were a fifth gift, I suppose, but a great place for small, inexpensive items and treats.
Our kids now do the same with their own children.
I like this idea alot, but my only problem is that my kids are 9, 6, & 4 and have always gotten tons of stuff from us and Santa. How do we start this tradition and explain it to the kids when they are used to something else? I think I can do the gifts from us okay, but what about the “Santa” gifts. Thanks!
I think this is something each family has to work out for themselves. However, here is how we do it. We also do Santa (https://habitsforahappyhome.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/i-am-santa-claus/). But our main emphasis is on the Three Gifts – explaining the meaning of the three gifts. We always make sure the best gifts are from us parents 🙂 Then we keep the Santa gifts to the stockings and a couple more things. One year we even had Santa bring their favorite sugary cereal – those things that we normally don’t get in the cereal aisle 🙂 Another year Santa brought a bigger gift for the boys together and a bigger gift for the girls together – less stuff but ‘more’. Just a few ideas and suggestions. Hope those help!
Cheryl ~ Our family is much like yours (10, 9, 5 & 1). For most of the early years we really went overboard with the gifts. When our 3rd child was born we were giving out one gift per person from each person plus a Santa gift for each person. That’s a lot of gifts! We scaled down by letting the kids draw names instead of them each getting something for all the siblings. They like the fun of drawing names so much, that I don’t think they even realized they would be getting fewer presents. Now they each get a gift from Mom, one from Dad, & one from a sibling. They learned the truth about Santa last year (& we’re not starting it with the younger ones). We also have one big family gift & let each child add one family gift to the box (like a movie, game, etc.. ).
I guess I haven’t really answered your question. I would suggest that you do it slowly. Don’t just pull the rug out from under them all at once. Scale back a bit this year, but add something fun (like a family gift or name exchange) that might take some of the focus off of the number of gifts. Then each year cut back more until you get to the three gifts.
I love Kendra’s suggestion of doing it slowly… and the sibling drawing. (Brothers and sisters have such fun deciding what to give each other!) When we started doing the three gifts for each of our children – they didn’t notice any difference – 3 gifts times 3, 4 or 5 children is still a lot of gifts – plus stockings and things from grandparents and other family members!
The other suggestion from that magazine (above) was four gifts: something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read.
And the Santa part of ours is just a fun addition – our older three know all about it. The younger two think Daddy is silly!
So how do you give to grandchildren when the parents want to limit Christmas? How do you handle smallish families with two kids and five grandchildren. Trading names is one idea, but the issue is that you might give your own mother a present one year and the other child will not be able to. My kids don’t like that idea. Help?
Judy – this 3 gifts for Christmas idea we apply just to our children. We don’t place limits on grandparents 🙂 Our children also draw names – and each child gets a small gift for a sibling. Hope those ideas help!
Our grandkids don’t need another toy, so we always give them a gift of a special outing. Depending on the grandparents’ budgets, it could be anything from a tea party or slumber party at Grandma’s house to a day at the zoo or a trip to an amusement park. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Our grandkids just love the time we get to spend with them. Usually, we take 2-3 grandkids at a time. Sometimes it’s siblings together, sometimes it’s girl cousins for one activity and boy cousins for another.
I love this idea. As a child of a single mom I learned less is more a long time ago. Even with my own children I have tried to instill these lessons. I love the way this incorporates the story of Jesus along with the gifts. Great post. Great site!
-Wendy
Love those ideas Kim! This year we’ve been enjoying ‘destination birthdays’ as a family. Each child has picked a local spot and we’ve all gone to enjoy the day together. We’ve been to the Coca-cola museum, the aquarium and to ride the train at Stone Mountain park. All things we’ve been meaning to do for a while. And, you are right, they really don’t need another toy. We haven’t spent more than we would have to host friends for a party and buy presents and we’ve built lots of great memories! A couple of those local trips complimented our homeschool studies too.
Wendy- I agree. Incorporating the story of Jesus is exactly the goal. And thank you!
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